Sky Room
by FemmeDraconis
Summary: There is no quicker way to go insane than to have merely a portion of what you love. Humans are greedy like that. They want everything in its entirety, its whole being. They want the fresh air, not the stale air of filthy prisons. They want the sky.


_Author's Notes_: This is a little something that hit me very hard last night when I was reading a book of poetry. The fic is kind of dark, and has cursing, if you don't like that, beware. Also, you _must _read the poem to understand what goes on. It is vague, and there are no specific names, but see if you can guess who the people are. In actuality, I had many, many variations of people in mind for this fic, so your freedom is in your choice. Also, I wanted to submit this as sort of a fast run into the summer. I'm on break (finally!) and will be able to continue _Analyze_ (Finally!). I'm really curious to know what people think of this one-shot though, so read and review. It isn't beta-d – I hope there aren't too many mistakes.

_Disclaimers_: Harry Potter is not mine in any way, shape or form. That honor goes to J.K. Rowling. Nor do I own the parts of the poem I used: "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde. It is a magnificent poem (all approximately 22 pages of it), but I have dramatically reduced it and intertwined it with my own tale. The last two stanzas were modified for my purposes. Muahahaha.

_Summary_: The war is over. The Light has lost, Voldemort is in power. Its culmination ended with the death of a virgin that He desired. It ended with the one man who could deliver her to Him. He did. And I watched the aftershock from behind my bars.

_Sky Room_

I listen to the dull, dull thud of flesh against metal for the thousandth time in the thousandth hour of time.

It is my cell mate, tapping his fingers against the steel, to a steady, syncopated rhythm. A louder sound comes from the man two cages away. There is "gossip" (as much gossip as one gets in prison) that he has this oblong dent in his head from banging his flesh against those steel bars.

But of course, I've never asked him if I could see it. That would be fucking insane – and I'm not off my rocker like he is. And at least he has something to pass the time with.

Me?

I don't really know what I do all day. The days sort of blend in after a while. You'll wake up with crusty remnants of drool in the corner of your mouth: the only evidence that you had a nice dream of something outside the dark walls of prison. Then you'll fall asleep with – yet again – the same flaky saliva, in the same place, from smelling the fresh steak and kidney pie that the guards' wives send their husbands.

The same thing everyday.

That's why it was so interesting when he came.

-------

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead,

The poor dead woman whom he loved,

And murdered in her bed.

I didn't get to see him for very long the first day. He had to go see those bleeding Vultures up at the courtroom in the other sector of the prison. And when he came back, he looked no worse for wear – other than the obvious fact that part of him was already rotting like the stale bread we have for our appetizers.

He walked amongst the Trial Men

In a suit of shady grey;

A cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay;

But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of silver by.

"What a fucking pansy," my cell mate told me – in hushed tones of course. He was talking about the new guy. See, all the new guy did all day was scrunch himself up in a corner of the cell (a mean feat I tell you, since the whole cell qualifies as a corner) and stare out of the tiny hole in the wall to the sky. That hole was not a window of course – a man I used to know once tried to burrow his way out through it, and it left that crack. And that crackpot new guy would just _stare_ out of it, for hours on end, as if miraculously some bloody bird – a phoenix or something – would squeeze through it and pull him out. Just like that.

But, you see, funnily enough, I didn't have the heart to condemn this man. He sort of reminded me of when I first came here, and all the whispering voices that made me want to slide through that hole in the wall to whatever was waiting outside.

I walked with other souls in pain,

Within another ring,

And was wondering if the man had done

A great or little thing,

When a voice behind me whispered low,

_"That fellow's got to swing."_

And a small part inside of me wanted to forgive him for whatever sin he had committed. I didn't think of my own inner tumult after seeing him.

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why

He looked upon the garish day

With such a wistful eye;

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Soon, I overheard the most interesting thing since I came to my little cell: he was the one. The new guy was the one who sold out the Light. A beautiful woman, whom I used to know, was slain on the Dark Lord's black marble floors in the Dark Lord's personal lair. And even though the rumors persisted in saying that it was quick and that he had knelt over her body afterwards and wept till he was dry, I was still horrified. He had loved her – I had loved her! And he had betrayed us all.

And strange it was to see him pass

With a step so light and gay,

And strange it was to see him look

So wistfully at the day,

And strange to think that he

Had such a debt to pay.

Yet still, ever on, I could not condemn him. I would curse myself at night, nearly going mad with hate of him, and of myself; of the world, and the sun; at my parents, at the trees, at the sky. I had been in that sick, sad place for much longer than he – I had learned to turn off everything – the beating of my heart, the whispering of my breath, everything that I had learned made me human.

We were all animals in that prison, and I might have killed him in his sleep if I ever managed to get him alone.

In his sleep, you ask? Why would I give him such a peaceful death?

Because of the remorse in his eyes that crept out even though he didn't want it to. He had loved her. And he had killed her.

So with curious eyes and sick surmise

We watched him day by day,

And wondered if each one of us

Would end the self-same way,

For none can tell to what red Hell

His sightless soul may stray.

Some of us prisoners thought that the new guy might get off of the charges against him. After all, we were under a new regime – the Dark Regime – and though he was never a friend of the Dark Lord, he had done what the Dark Lord wanted. I guess that wasn't enough. Voldemort has always loved to play games, and so for fucksake – and maybe because he had shamefully cried over her body – he was sentenced to death.

At last the dead man walked no more

Amongst the Trial Men,

And I knew that he was standing up

In the black dock's dreadful pen,

And that never would I see his face

In God's sweet world again.

I remember my first meeting with him. I began to think of it, you see, because on the day he was sentenced to death, it was like that first time. I had no friends then, I've got no friends now, and miraculously we've ended up in the same place.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm

We had crossed each other's way:

But we made no sign, we said no word,

We had no word to say;

For we did not meet in the holy night,

But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,

Two outcast men we were:

The world had thrust us from its heart,

And god from out His care:

And the iron gin that waits for Sin

Had caught us in its snare.

From then on, he had changed, though the difference was infinitesimal. He kept his sorrow mostly to himself, as a "brave man" does. It wouldn't have mattered if he tried to confide in any of us – that would've been a great laugh – none would have cared. He stirred little at night, and made no fuss in the day – the only time I ever saw him get angry was when one of the other inmates tried to deny him his window. Let me just say that it no one ever tried to after that.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,

And drank his quart of beer:

His soul was resolute, and held

No hiding-place for fear;

He often said that he was glad

The hangman's hands were near.

I had heard, of course, that some prisoners could never stand it in our lonely, little cells, and took their lives; but those thoughts gave me shivers. And it gave me shivers to hear him say it so noncommittally, so _peacefully_. But I never told him that – nor did any other man.

Or else he might be moved, and try

To comfort or console:

And what should Human Pity do

Pent up in Murderers' Hole?

What word of grace in such a place

Could help a brother's soul?

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,

We turned the dusty drill:

We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,

And sweated on the mill:

But in the heart of every man

Terror was lying still.

-------

I never knew how soon it would come.

I never knew anything.

I never knew that I would fight and end up losing all that was dear to me, all that was left. I never knew until I saw the new man (whose face was will so young to me, so fresh) that I still had more to lose. I never knew that his death would come so rapidly.

I had gotten a chill in the night. I sat up, drenched in my sweat, convinced that it was blood, only to see the whites of my cell mate's eyes. I heard ragged breathing – but not from just my mate – from everyone in that prison. There was a chill in the air. I remember shaking, shaking so hard that my teeth chattered and cut through the flesh of my hardened lips. My reaction was so very similar to the reactions of when I see those hooded figures of death and misery.

Anyone! I cried, I sobbed. Please help us!

I imagined that I heard the man with the dented head banging his head against the silver bars, banging, banging, banging…

Shut up! I screamed. All the other inmates howled. I was hallucinating – he was not banging anything. He was quiet as a church mouse, crying like a fucking newborn into his nail bitten, rotting hands. And everything was bleeding.

At last I saw the shadowed bars,

Like a lattice wrought in lead,

Move right across the whitewashed wall

That faced my three-plank bed,

And I knew that somewhere in the world

God's dreadful dawn was red.

And I knew that he was dead.

-------

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,

At seven all was still,

But the sough and swing of a mighty wing

The prison seemed to fill,

For the Lord of Death with icy breath

Had entered in to kill.

So, the new guy was gone.

And though he had not been with us long, something did leave us.

We were as men who through a fen

Of filthy darkness grope:

We did not dare to breathe a prayer,

Or to give our anguish scope:

Something was dead in each of us,

And what was dead was Hope.

Usually, only a few of us ventured into the Sky Room.

The Sky Room was a small vestibule with a transparent, domed ceiling. People who have never been to this room think that it is so very sweet that we are allowed the indulgence. All of _us_ know that it is to help us along to madness. Because there is no quicker way to go insane than to have merely a portion of what you love. Humans are greedy like that. They want everything in its entirety, its whole being. They want the fresh air of blooming flowers - not the stale air of filthy prisons; they want to see the sky, to touch it - not a glass dome only seven feet high. They want love, friendship, a connection - not a corpse that will be buried as soon as the rain stops falling.

Anyway, that day, I think all of us went into the Sky Room. I saw someone that I hadn't seen in a long, long time. We were friends of a sort – more likely he followed me around. And even though I wanted to say something to him so much, anything, just for a connection, I didn't. I merely looked at him. And he looked at me. And then I walked away from him.

Out into God's sweet air we went,

But not in wonted way,

For this man's face was white with fear,

And that man's face was grey,

And I never saw sad men who looked

So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

We prisoners called they sky,

And at every careless cloud that passed

In happy freedom by.

I hate when death sentences happen. I remember everything that I did wrong, and all the things I'll never do again.

Silently we went round and round,

And through each hollow mind

The Memory of dreadful thing

Rushed like a dreadful wind.

And Horror stalked before each man,

And Terror crept behind.

And though I hated to hate the dead, I could feel the madness coursing through me yet again. The jealousy. How could he get to leave when I didn't?! How could he be spared my fate while I rotted away in my little cell?

And still, fucking _still_ I couldn't fully hate him. I couldn't begrudge him. For when they threw his body out into his grave, seven leagues under the muddy sea of earth, I saw his half-lidded eyes teeming with remorse.

He is at peace – this wretched man –

At peace, or will be soon:

There is no thing to make him mad,

Nor does Terror walk at noon,

For the lampless Earth in which he lies

Has neither Sun nor Moon.

Yet all is well; he has but passed

To Life's appointed bourne:

And alien tears will fill for him

Pity's long-broken urn,

For his mourners will be outcast men,

And outcasts always mourn.

We left the simply named Sky room and tried to drown ourselves in our own sorrow, hoping to get to freedom like that man had.

With midnight always in one's heart,

And twilight in one's cell,

We turn the crank, or tear the rope,

Each in his separate hell,

And the silence is more awful far

Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near

To speak a gentle word:

And the eye that watches through the door

Is pitiless and hard:

And by all forgot, we rot and rot,

With soul and body marred.

-------

Soon, I was back to being myself.

I again watch the days going by. The sky bleeds as the sun falls through it. Piercing it, trying to fall desperately into night. My stomach gnaws against its sides, my cell mate falls into fitful dreams. The crazy man two cells down bangs time into the pole with his head. Maybe he's the one with the right idea.

The crust begins to dry in my throat as I think of her. I can't breathe.

I think of my lost love…and I force my fist into my mouth to stop any sound or tears from pooling out.

I am afraid the tears will come out as blood.

And after a few moments or so, I am okay.

As I finger my scar, I think I am okay.

Because there, till Christ call forth the dead,

In silence let him lie:

No need to waste the foolish tear,

Or heave the windy sigh:

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,

By all let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

Dementors do it with a kiss,

Draco did it with a sword.

--------------------------------------------------------- Fin --------------------------------------------------------

Please review!

-Femme


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